AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

The stage is set and hip-hop and R&B roy­al­ty have ar­rived.

Amer­i­can singers Ja Rule (Jef­frey Atkins) and Ashan­ti (Ashan­ti Haynes) land­ed at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port just be­fore mid­day yes­ter­day, bring­ing high spir­its and nos­tal­gic star pow­er to Trinidad ahead of their head­lin­ing slots at to­day’s high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed R&B Brunch Fes­ti­val at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port of Spain.

The mu­si­cal duo was greet­ed with a warm lo­cal re­cep­tion by of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, mem­bers of the me­dia and ea­ger fans at the air­port.

Ashan­ti, who is no stranger to the shores of T&T, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with lo­cal so­ca stars and ex­pe­ri­enced Car­ni­val, glee­ful­ly de­clared her­self an “hon­orary Tri­ni.”

Ja Rule quick­ly backed her up, agree­ing, “She loves Car­ni­val!”

Wel­com­ing the pair be­hind icon­ic ear­ly-2000s an­thems like Al­ways on Time and Mes­merise, cul­ture min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin pre­dict­ed suc­cess for the fes­ti­val, not­ing the lo­cal af­fec­tion for both artistes.

“It gives me im­mense plea­sure to wel­come you here. Of course, your mu­sic, it is like the sound­track to all of our mem­o­ries. So I know that the con­cert on Sat­ur­day is go­ing to be spec­tac­u­lar…we will be in the au­di­ence cheer­ing you on,” Ben­jamin said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Ja Rule re­vealed he has per­son­al ties to the twin-is­land, not­ing that his wife has Trinida­di­an roots.

He ex­pressed ex­cite­ment about ex­plor­ing the lo­cal cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly the culi­nary scene.

“My wife said I’ve got­ta try dou­bles and bake and shark,” he said, adding that he is look­ing for­ward to ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the “good food” and “good peo­ple.”

Now 50, Ja Rule said that he doesn’t plan on re­leas­ing new mu­sic or jump­ing on any So­ca col­lab­o­ra­tions, as his fo­cus has shift­ed to film, tele­vi­sion and var­i­ous busi­ness ven­tures.

How­ev­er, he main­tained he has im­mense love for the lo­cal genre, though he con­ced­ed Ashan­ti holds the crown for the biggest So­ca fan be­tween them.

“She loves So­ca. I’m sure she is go­ing to in­cor­po­rate some of that in­to her show and bring a lit­tle So­ca vibe,” he teased.

As part of the of­fi­cial wel­come, the Min­istry pre­sent­ed the artistes with to­kens of ap­pre­ci­a­tion, in­clud­ing a bronze-coloured clock shaped like the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan. They al­so re­ceived per­son­alised gifts match­ing their sig­na­ture styles, a red buck­et hat for Ja Rule and a red scarf for Ashan­ti, both proud­ly fea­tur­ing T&T brand­ing.

The R&B Brunch Fes­ti­val kicks off to­day at 4 pm at Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

In ad­di­tion to the Amer­i­can duo, the star-stud­ded line­up fea­tures Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Valiant, along­side spe­cial per­for­mances by lo­cal favourites Pred­dy, Free­town Col­lec­tive and Er­phaan Alves.